Christ/Gospel and Culture

Lecture Five

Is all culture God-given?

What is Culture?

"Culture consists of patterns, explicit and implicit, of and for behavior acquired and transmitted

by symbols, constituting the distinctive achievement of human groups, including their

embodiment in artifacts;

the essential core of culture consists of traditional (i.e., historically derived and selected) ideas

and especially their attached values; culture systems may, on the other hand, be considered as

products of action, on the other hand as conditioning elements of further action." (Kroeber &

Kluckhohn in Carson 2008:2)

Culture has a lot to do with:

1. Identity (who we are)

 Which identity comes first? - Identity vs culture

 Culture affects our perception.

2. Community (how we relate with others)

3. Spirituality (how we relate to God)

Culture at times called civilization is the total process of human activity and that total result of

such activity. It is the artificial, secondary environment which man superimposes on the natural.

It comprises language, habits, ideas, beliefs, customs, social organization, inherited artifacts,

technical processes, and values.’

Biblical Perspectives:

Contextualization in the Old Testament

It is argued that the OT religion has some similarities with ancient near east religions, but was

fundamentally distinguished from them.

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Instructor – Tessema Wachemo (Dr.)
The Hebrew religion rejected many aspects of pagan religion. For example: child sacrifice,

ancestor worship.

Thus the principle of continuity and discontinuity operated hand-in-hand in the development of

Yahweh worship.

The undesirable elements such as idol worship and sexual immorality were de-culturalized

whereas other elements such as circumcision were extended.

The fundamental question then is, if Israel could borrow from other surrounding cultures which

were familiar to them, why is it wrong for Christians in a given country or society to borrow

from their own culture?

Contextualization in the New Testament

“The incarnation is a classic case in point. There God ‘contextualized’ himself in Jesus Christ.

He became Emmanuel, God with us – in a language that we understand. The incarnation had

nothing essentially ‘foreign’ about it. Of course, he was different and yet he was one of us.”

Davies, p. 205.

Accordingly, to communicate to those who spoke Greek and thought in Greek patterns, the

apostles continually got involved in contextualizing the Christian message which came to them

in Semitic language and culture. The New Testament was written in a context.

Here we need to note that theology emerges out of particular needs and not for the sake of doing

it. It is a response to local and contextual questions; lest it will be irrelevant.

The prime example of contextualization as done by the church is, the Jerusalem Council.

There were two fundamental questions which led to the Council:

First, how could Gentiles receive salvation?

And secondly, what were the conditions of fellowship between Jewish believers and Gentiles?

The Council decided that Gentiles were not required to be circumcised or observe the Torah, nor

were Jews compelled to stop observing the law.

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Instructor – Tessema Wachemo (Dr.)
Secondly, the dividing wall between Jews and Gentiles had been taken down, thus no pre-

conditions were put for them to fellowship with one another.

Baptism is another example of contextualization in the NT. It was used in Judaism and Pagan

religions but taken by Jesus and with another meaning. Thus the form was retained but the

meaning was changed.

Culture in its entirety is to face Christ. People are to turn to Christ. They are to come to Christ as

they are and face him. Christ’s lordship over all areas of life is to be seen.

We are not to preach our culture but Christ.

God’s attitude towards culture - Is it a vehicle or is it an enemy of the gospel?

What is God’s relation with culture?

Let’s see Richard’s analysis:

H. Richard Niebuhr

Fivefold Paradigm of Christ and Culture

1. Christ Against Culture / Reject Culture/

This represents "competing authority claims" (Carson, 13).

"The first answer to the question of Christ and culture we shall consider is the one that

uncompromisingly affirms the sole authority of Christ over the Christian and resolutely rejects

the culture's claims to loyalty" (Niebuhr 1951:45).

"The counterpart of loyalty to Christ and the brothers is the rejection of cultural society; a clear

line of separation is drawn between the brotherhood of the children of God and the world." (Ibid.

46-48).

In this segment Niebuhr reminds his readers regarding the 'third race,' a different from Jews and

gentiles, and called to live a way of life quite separate from culture." (Carson, 13)

"this position is both 'necessary' and 'inadequate'....The stance is often heroic, principled, morally

determined, and uncompromising." (Carson, 15)

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Instructor – Tessema Wachemo (Dr.)
There are theological Problems of Christ Against Culture

A. Simul Justus et Peccator is missing. Sin is only found outside, not among Christians

B. It becomes more legalistic as days go by.

C. Imposing their own ethic on the being of God

It denies, unknowingly, that God is the God of Nature and History, and the Spirit is at work

in creation "a Trinitarian challenge" (Carson, 16).

2. The Christ of Culture /Assimilation/

- “The church’s responsibility toward culture is to show that the best ideals of the culture

fit well with Christianity and we need to bring out the best in the culture.” (Little, 2013)

- "This position is adopted by people who hail Jesus as the Messiah of their society"

(Carson, 16).

- They are like "the Gnostics" (Ibid.) or Peter Aberald.

Peter Abelard, a medieval theologian: "he reduces [faith] to what conforms with the best in

culture. It becomes a philosophic knowledge about reality and an ethics for the improvement of

life." (Carson, 17)

"They do not seek Christ's sanction for everything in their culture, but only for what they find to

be the best in it; equally, they tend to separate Christ from what they judge to be barbaric or

outmoded Jewish nations about God and history." (Ibid., 16)

3. Christ Above Culture / Synthesis/

"Stands to be the majority position in the history of the church." (Carson, 20)

It has three streams

3.1 "the synthesists“

3.2 "the dualists“

3.3 "the conversionists" (Ibid.)

"Where this conviction rules, Christ and the world cannot be simply opposed to each other."

(Niebuhr in Carson, ibid.)

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Instructor – Tessema Wachemo (Dr.)
"the church of the center...holds to strong convictions about the universality and radical nature of

sin, and about 'the primacy of grace and the necessity of works of obedience.'" (Ibid.).

The church has the responsibility to transcend its culture while living within it.

3.1 The Synthesists

- "seek a 'both-and' solution" (Ibid., 21)

- the gap as well as the bridge

- "We cannot say, 'Either Christ or culture,' because we are dealing with God in both cases"

(Ibid.). "We must not say, "Both Christ and Culture,' as though there were no great distinction

between them;" (Ibid.)

- "but we must say, 'Both Christ and Culture,' in full awareness of the dual nature of our

law, our end, our situation" (Ibid.)

- "Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar's and to God the things that are God's." (Mat.

22:21) (Ibid.)

- "We are to be subject to the governing authorities, for there is no authority apart from what God

himself as instituted (Romans 13)." (Ibid.)

4. Christ and Culture in Paradox / Tension/

-“ these are dualists" (Ibid.)

- "For the dualists, the fundamental issue in life is not the line that must be drawn between

Christians and the pagan or secular world, but between God and all humankind." (Ibid., 23)

- "Sin is in us; grace is in God." (Ibid.)

- "...the dualist joins the radical Christian in pronouncing the whole world of human culture to be

godless and sick unto death." (Ibid.)

- "But there is this difference between them[contra radical]: the dualist knows that he

belongs to that culture and cannot get out of it, that God indeed sustains him in it and by

it; for if God in His grace did not sustain the world in its sin it would not exist for a

moment." (Ibid.)

Evangelical Theological College (ETC) – Lecture Note: Theological Method in Africa

Instructor – Tessema Wachemo (Dr.)
- The duality is: "Living between time and eternity, between wrath and mercy, between culture

and Christ..." (Ibid., 24)

- "dualism tends to lead Christians toward

(a) antinomianism, and

(b) cultural conservatism....dualists focus on 'only one set of the great cultural institutions

and set the habits of their times -- the religious.'" (Ibid., 25)

- "The result is that they tend to leave other matters -- matters of political justice, say, or an

institution like slavery -- unchanged." (Ibid.).

5. Christ the Transformer of Culture / Conversion/

- "this one is the conversionist" (Ibid., 25)

- "Niebuhr is not thinking so much of individual conversion...as of the conversion of the

culture itself." (Ibid.)

- "What distinguishes conversionists from dualists is their more positive and hopeful attitude

toward culture." (Ibid., 26)

The reasons the conversionist indicates positive attitude toward culture is

1. "Creation is not only the setting for redemption, but the sphere in which God's sovereign,

ordering, work operates." (Ibid.)

2. "the conversionist insists the fall is 'moral and personal, not physical and metaphysical, though

it does have physical consequences.'" (Ibid.)

3. "adopts 'a view of history that holds that to God all things are possible in a history that is

fundamentally not a course of merely human events but always a dramatic interaction between

God and men.'" (Ibid.)

- "Christ is the transformer of culture...in the sense that he redirects, revives, and regenerates that

life of man, expressed in all human works, which in present actuality is the perverted and

corrupted exercise of a fundamentally good nature" (Ibid., 27).

Evangelical Theological College (ETC) – Lecture Note: Theological Method in Africa

Instructor – Tessema Wachemo (Dr.)
Evangelical Theological College (ETC) – Lecture Note: Theological Method in Africa
Instructor – Tessema Wachemo (Dr.)